Despite its aging appearance, difficulty of customizations etc the current forum actually works pretty well

So does the North Korean government, but that doesn't mean you have to stay and put up with everything when there are other countries you can move to. Difference here being the dear leader is just going to use his words instead.

One neat feature I would like is the ability to focus on posts/topics from other forum users that started around the same time as me. I enjoy hearing from and communicating with the long time bitcoiners, but it seems more newbies join every day and I hear less and less from people who's opinion I have come to respect over the years.

In the new proposed forum model, "focus" is done by your choice alone, and only by what others "broadcast" to you, meaning that you do really have full choice to see what you want to see. There doesn't seem to be anything stopping this system from also having additional parameters of focus like you're requesting. I'll mull over how it could be done effectively, because it seems that people would also want those on their trusted broadcast network to have their threads shown first over random public broadcasted ones that they didn't choose to ignore yet.

I think bitcointalk.org is the absolute worst place to talk about Bitcoin, except for all the other places.

There's something about this place that keeps it relevant in spite of its warts, and I'm not sure that whatever it is would move to a new forum. It's been tried before.

It's never been tried by me. It's been tried by others who wanted fame or fortune from their endeavor. I want transparency and to end the hypocrisy. In that, I will succeed no matter who supports this project or not, I just may not succeed in pulling in those who seek out corruption to benefit from it. (i.e. I highly doubt the forum I am designing will be popular with the scammers since they are effectively neutralized).

The reason that this forum is still relevant is because the oldest members in the community are still here, as are the ones who are the smartest, as are the ones who are the richest, as are the ones who talk the most. If you can convince the ones who talk the most to move, the rest will follow. Guess which one I am.

I don't share all of your complaints about this forum, but there is certainly no harm in competition and innovation. I have been thinking myself about ideas for an improved, more decentralized type of forum for a while.

To add to the recent serious complaints, he just said that Garr255 (who shill bid his own auction) didn't do anything wrong (disclaimer: Garr255 is a friend of Theymos and is trusted with 250 BTC of your donated funds). There is just no more incentive for Theymos to have integrity and it is blatantly obvious.

How are you going to avoid anything but OP moderation? Or am I reading that wrong? Certainly blatantly illegal things will have to be removed.

The poster below is correct. The server can't see what the user doesn't allow someone to see by inviting them into the feed. It needs to be tested and tried, but ask yourself the same question about the bitcoin blockchain. If there were something "illegal" there, how would it be "removed"? It doesn't need to, just ignored, which is the default action. When it comes to data and encryption, when no one can see it, it effectively doesn't exist. Since the server would hold no encrypted keys, complying with any and all demands of local law enforcement (hint: not a US hosted site) would still not help them do anything about the content.

I haven't had time to read much more than your OP yet, but I didn't read anything about a tipping system there, that's certainly something it needs.

You're absolutely right and I totally forgot to add it. I wrote this last night at something like 6am so there will be plenty of time to refine thoughts and add features. I think despite the initial concern that "no one will use tipping" (which I share in concern), there is no reason not to allow bitcoinQT (or another method) to be linked through API to tips and such. Blockchain.info does it with a browser plugin. Anything is possible.

Since moderation would effectively be impossible programmatically except for users the thread OP assigns moderation trust to, the only "censorship" vector is at the domain level. I *need* suggestions on how to make that a distributed control effort, because I don't think I should even hold that domain once things get going but I'm unaware of any registrars that would allow me to demand a split key system of control.

I have had the idea rolling around of a totally community owned and operated forum (and company), where everyone has voting privileges and shares, that increase or decrease based on factors focused around what you have contributed, your reputation, tips, karma-type ratings, etc. Perhaps create a block-chain (ideally that can be mined along-side Bitcoin like Namecoin) to record everything permanently, or to just have a permanent record of some things, and give some credit for those who run nodes. Everything is decided using this weighted-vote system, from things like forum moderation and escrow conflicts, to making all of the every-day business decisions like hiring employees and electing directors (if needed at all, community would decide). Founders would have no advantage over anyone else.

The main problems with this forum come with time, just as with civilization itself. Corruption and hypocrisy have ruined it at the administrative level. By allowing *any* users to be more powerful of influential, there system will become agenda-ridden like must of the current community is. Instead, I propose that all users are equal in the only power that matters-- self governance. If you choose to trust someone elses broadcast, then you are agreeing to listen to their ramblings (reverse ignore). If you choose to trust someone for transactions, you are choosing to increase their reputation based on your reputation. Nothing gets shoved in without notice by a moderator who invested into someone. No one gets secretly "whitelisted". It will no longer be profitable to make repeated sockpuppets as everyone will know exactly who made them by who is trusted them so much. This will also reduce scams. Some could argue that "moderation is necessary" at a site-wide level, but I content that site-wide moderation is the site's biggest weakness as it allows a trust-attack vector similar to having dishonest police. You can't fight them, but they make you feel like you need them so you're forced to trust them. I say do away with them altogether.

Basically operating everything on the principle that if one person looks at a big jar of jelly beans and tries to guess how many there are, they won't get anywhere close, but if a million people guess the average will be exact. I suppose it would be run like a fairly typically anarchist-type system. I suppose the big questions that would make or break this are if a corporation really needs a CEO, and if a community can actually self-regulate.

That's the test, isn't it? We need to prove it once it's up and running. I have faith this community is diverse enough to make it work. I have no faith that moderation will help at all. I do not think the site needs a corporation to run it. Despite loving the concepts of a free market, I see this forum turning to garbage when profits control interests. I think instead, the community should decide with their trust who holds the keys. Initially it would be whomever the first involved decide (I have made no stake in requiring control in this project, only in being the leading passion until others are able to decipher the vision).

The forum could end up branching out in a million different ways, all consensus-based, as the community decides how to spend funds and all other resources. Either it could end up running the world, or blow up and fail in a week. I wish I had enough resources to develop something like this myself and just launch it on the world, but unfortunately most of my company's time has to be spent on things that actually make money for us, instead of costing us. If your project turns in to (or is already intended as) something resembling what I've been considering, I would put as much time and coin into it as possible.

3 years ago I started a project called smallpla.net that never actually got finished. It was a project based on a consensus community, Ripple style trust payment network, automatic language simplification engines for everyone to learn each others language easier, and a shared economy with dynamically created miniature governments geared at creating projects and collaborations. It was intended to be a collection of micro-democracies. I am sure some of those ideas will carry through, but at least for the first iteration I have no intention of complicating things much more than they are already.

If you support this project, PM me with your public email and I'll jott you down on the spreadsheet as a pledger of support. People need to see just how many others agree with this initiative because they are going to first be in denial ("We don't really need a new forum, this one isn't really broken" and other logical fallacies). and it will take them some time until they realize how they are being corralled like cattle here and deserve an open field.

Did Gar255 put a gun to his head? No one forced the bidders to do anything.

Having an alt that artificially raises the bid price is similar to a secret reserve price in an auction. There's nothing inherently wrong with it except that Garr255 should have warned bidders that he might do it. I rank his actions there as "a bit shady," though he handled the fallout badly (due to inexperience, I suppose).

In any case, alts aren't against forum rules, and scammer tags are typically only given when an explicit agreement is broken. Garr255 never promised not to bid on his own auctions. He never even promised to honor the results of the auctions. Without contracts that say otherwise, auctions are only devices to assist in price negotiations.

I've officially lost all remaining respect for you. You have absolutely no integrity and do not deserve to be our admin. Despite having made serious misjudgments in the past, I have more integrity in my pinky than you'll apparently ever have. Give me my 10 BTC donation back immediately you hypocritical sleezeball. I don't support scams and thus I can't support you.

When have I ever scammed anyone of anything? Having a scammer tag doesn't mean you're a scammer. Else, why would Theymos make a "scammer" a moderator? Why would he remove said tag later instead of trumpet to the community to "stay away danger!". Garr255 did even worse than I did, because I wasn't even attempting at personal gain, just pissing a select group of people off (which obviously succeeded because you're *still* butthurt).

So which is it? Am I untrustworthy or a bitch? Being a bitch doesn't make someone untrustworthy. What I can't take is the continued hypocrisy by mouthpieces who ignore common sense in place of their own agendas. If repeating that for all to hear makes me a bitch, bring on the dog food.

I have made a spreadsheet to display current objectives as far as features, as well as to show support of pledgers. Pledgers can be people who support with donation pledges towards feature task completion on CIYAM Open, time for development, marketing, branding, hosting, or just general support and a pledge to move to the new software for testing once completed.

I am confused how you proposal will will resolve the funding problems for running a forum. You mention unwanted advertising and giving 6000 BTC to a forum moderator (an incident I am not aware of).

This SMF default installation and domain name alone have somehow warranted over 6,000 BTC donated to Theymos to make it better. 12 months later and nothing has happened. Just more broken and bias corruption and hypocrisy. That is what the reference to that is all about. I have my motivations for doing this, but the reasons behind needing it are far bigger than me and any of my opinions-- we need a "forum" where we do not need to be moderated at all.

Yeesh, that second to last girl kinda looks like a corpse. It seems as though they're all trying to look like children (or cutesy anime characters but roughly the same thing).

But I do agree with your final point, there's beautiful women everywhere and ugly women everywhere, just as there's handsome men everywhere and ugly men everywhere. To further point out the absurdity of attempting to rank a nation by the number of attractive women naturally born and sitting within its borders, we must assume:

A. That people do not travel (for starters),B. Most men share the same taste, which would imply,C. Most women of the nation which produces the sexiest women look alike.

Ignoring the first point, we could go back and forth debating which nations produce the sexiest women, but until we all agree that there's only one type of women we're all attracted to, we'll never get anywhere. It's a futile argument which essentially boils down to, "Which nation's women are you generally attracted to?"

And I can't say I've ever seen the women of a nation who are, by landslide victory, all of the same height, skin color, facial structure, hair texture, and breast size, or else I could, at least, make an objective statement than "girls of nation X are super hot", let alone try to argue that my supposed objectivity should be shared by all my male peers, where we could, for a fact, claim that all women of nation X are the hottest of all the nations. And if we can assume that personality has enough of an impact on a woman's attractiveness to affect their physical appearance, we're really better off just discussing what it is we actually like in a woman, because we'll never agree, nor should we. All we're gonna do here is encourage the idea that people of a specific nation are always going to be one way, whether the stereotype is good or bad.

I can agree to that so I'll list what I like in a woman first.

1) She needs to have a pulse.2) She needs to not be so ugly or fat that I can't look at her even when drunk.3) She needs to say yes whenever I'm ready (this gives her points toward beauty if she needs them).4) She can't stare up at me when she's blowing me like a puppy dog admiring a bone (she concentrates on the job at hand).4) She needs to not speak directly to me when the deed is done (because my interest in her is limited at this point and will need time to recover).5) Her mother must already be dead, incarcerated for more than 20 years in a geographic location that prohibits our visiting her or resides in another country and fears travel.6) She needs to have a job and be willing to loan me money whenever I need a little extra.

This is my basic foundation for the perfect woman. Of course, other pluses or minuses will matter when you get involved with her such as sexual prowess, kink, breast size, natural breasts (can't really be determined until your squeezing em), excessive stretch marks, scaring, etc.

I think of all the places I've visited Japan had women that, on average, fit most of my desires.

Hmm, that's a good point. What you could do is setup checkpoints on a highway which scanned both the speed of vehicles and asked to see if they had one of those things. If someone passes the checkpoint at a high speed and does not have one, police would know someone is speeding without the license. Further, if those with speeder licenses didn't mind being tracked, the checkpoints could also count how many times a single rider passed in the day, which could determine the fee to bill the speeder, if that's how revenue would be earned.

Only bit that'll bother people is being watched on the road as to whether or not they're speeding. But I don't personally care; people get what they asked for, and they keep asking for government, so poo poo.

In Korea, there is a speed camera ever 2km anyway. Being "watched" is a daily part of life. It'd be better to be watched to make sure you're paying your dues than to fine you for driving WELL imo.

most people on the roads equate to mindless farm animals....monkey see monkey do idiocy, and have very little spatial awareness, and a competent idea of what their car can, and cannot do... then there are road, and weather conditions to contend with on top of that.

I upgrade the entire suspension, struts, springs, all the bushings, swaybars, and brakes on every car I own so that they handle far beyond stock, (a little hobby of mine) and it simply amazes me how many idiots think their bone stock SUV, or mini van, etc... is a ferrari....

I can do a tight 90deg turn at reasonable speed, perfectly flat, controlled, 100% stable, and you would be amazed how many people try to do the same maneuver behind you, and end up creating a safety issue because stock suspension on 90% of all cars on the road are complete shitsville from a performance perspective.

These ding dongs end up causing almost all of the accident statistics aside from young kids, and text a holics.

totally clueless on what their car can do, but they see it, and try to do it anyways...

same thing will happen for the speed issue...it's a recipe for disaster.

Interesting theory, but wouldn't that also be true for karate, jet piloting, racism, rape, movie violence (and even video game violence!) and at the very least, parkour?

I don't think if such a license existed, and was publicized, that it would be as big of an occurrence as you think it would. People would strive to take the courses and tests to be able to "do it legally".

not necessarily. A lot of people that drive think they are an awesome driver, not everyone does karate, parkour etc, but those that do always try to push the limits because they think they can become awesome at it, or they already are...proof positive is endless youtube videos of people wiping out, or nearly neutering themselves with a pair of numchucks, or trying a maneuver because they saw it on youtube, tv, etc...

people drive all the time, and they think their car is awesome because it's xyz ,and they paid a lot of money for it...the sad part is those types usually suck at driving, but don't realize it's more about the driver than the car....all they have to do is move their right foot an inch or so..that's another factor...super simple to get there, but much harder to deal with it once there.

I would be the first in line to get an advanced license, but I doubt anyone would ceate a double standard on the roadways, as the people that would cause the problem could not handle the reality of it. sad to say but true from my observations.

The point here is that there is already a double standard, but it's time those of us who deserve it benefit from it.

most people on the roads equate to mindless farm animals....monkey see monkey do idiocy, and have very little spatial awareness, and a competent idea of what their car can, and cannot do... then there are road, and weather conditions to contend with on top of that.

I upgrade the entire suspension, struts, springs, all the bushings, swaybars, and brakes on every car I own so that they handle far beyond stock, (a little hobby of mine) and it simply amazes me how many idiots think their bone stock SUV, or mini van, etc... is a ferrari....

I can do a tight 90deg turn at reasonable speed, perfectly flat, controlled, 100% stable, and you would be amazed how many people try to do the same maneuver behind you, and end up creating a safety issue because stock suspension on 90% of all cars on the road are complete shitsville from a performance perspective.

These ding dongs end up causing almost all of the accident statistics aside from young kids, and text a holics.

totally clueless on what their car can do, but they see it, and try to do it anyways...

same thing will happen for the speed issue...it's a recipe for disaster.

Interesting theory, but wouldn't that also be true for karate, jet piloting, racism, rape, movie violence (and even video game violence!) and at the very least, parkour?

I don't think if such a license existed, and was publicized, that it would be as big of an occurrence as you think it would. People would strive to take the courses and tests to be able to "do it legally".